One of the world’s most prestigious medical journals has falsely accused Dr Andrew Wakefield – the man at the centre of the MMR-autism controversy – of fraud.
The British Medical Journal recently claimed that Wakefield had deliberately fabricated the evidence to suggest that a small group of children were displaying autism-spectrum disorders after having the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.
But, in response, Wakefield has pointed out that his 1998 paper was based on evidence that had first been assembled 14 months earlier by Prof Walker-Smith at the Royal Free Hospital.
Although he has been barred from practising medicine, Wakefield remains a champion of the many parents whose children have developed autism after the MMR vaccine.
(Sources: British Medical Journal, 2011; 342:c7452; statement by Dr Andrew Wakefield).
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